User: RH

I cannot remember being spanked by my parents beyond knowing that I sometimes (rarely) was. I went to boarding school and eve now nearly 50 years on I can still remember every details of the four times I was caned. Must have made a big impression

There was plenty I could and probably should have been caned for, but I am not sure I should have caned any of the times I was.

I had a headmaster who could make you feel guilty for anything .Even something you had not done!

RH (Rick)

Hi Rick

I think that is right. THAT boarding school was not right got me although been very keen go to the same prestigious school as Dad had been to, and I had passed a tough common entrance exam to get in. Despite the high fees there is huge competition for places. But I had been at boarding school since I was10 ½ and I LOVED my prep school set in the heart of rural Gloucestershire. (Prep, as in preparing for Common Entrance) It was not that I was homesick or anything. I was very badly taught by teachers I did not hit off with and who did nothing to inspire me or motivate me. Many of them should not have been in a classroom. If you had a first class honours degree from Oxford or Cambridge and were a CCF Officer or had played cricket for Scotland your ability as a teacher did not seem to come into it. Maybe they thought we were smart guys who could/would learn on our own.

I thought I was working hard and making progress, but I think I had never really settled down. I always struggled, and the staff either did not know why, or what to do about it, how to help me (Nor did the education psychologist I was taken to see) I do not think here was even a gram of teenage rebellion. I wanted do well but funny things happen as you pass through 14-15 without you noticing. I was often in trouble with teachers. One even said he would cane me if he caught me eating sweets, candy in class again! I get plenty of attention at home, but because I was not a high flyer I was largely ignored. I was very introverted, conventional and just at the wrong school at the wrong times. Other boys thrived.

It is funny to think that when your Dad punishes you he can probably remember his dad punishing him for doing something very similar. And you jus’ know your son will do the same and it will be your turn to be the stern dad with the big stick. I have said there is a time and a place for CP even now, because boys are as naughty as they ever were, and a paddling in their bottoms will still calm them down.

I was not intentionally naughty either but it just happened. Sometimes having two other brothers saved me from trouble because I learnt from their mistakes. More often they got me into trouble because I used to take along with what they were doing. Were very close friends. We still are.

It is funny how clearly we can remember the times we were paddled belted or caned even after many years. As you grow up you realize last chances and final warnings or just that. And a smart guy learns quickly that is a good time to change his behavior. The only spankings that were there were those play spankings with your friends. With Mum it was done in underpants, at school it was whatever you're wearing, trousers or shorts if you are lucky but I can I can tell you pajama bottoms do not lessen the pain at all. I was only beaten in front of my friends once. I think the view was that we were not the only guilty ones and it would serve as a warning to all of us for another time.

I was a little apprehensive the time I had to strip and shower naked in the communal shower with other boys. There was no alternative no choice and once I got used to it I did not care anymore. We were all boys. So! So what? Alan Ball was always sent up to his room at least when we were there where is Mum laid into him. At David's house across the road we would be sent home.

I always like to hear from you so keep talking

All the best

Richard

Hi Rick

I guess yours and my experience growing up and going to school in the 1960s and 1970s is very different from the experience of growing up and going to school now. Discipline was different, but so was everything else. I think the most important things are that families, parents and children maintain open communication and good relationships. I know some families find it harder than others but I am not sure that the boot camp in Arizona is the answer. And from what I see read and hear the problem is as often with the parents at it is with the children. You must have been proud of how good your parents were with your friends, and how much they enjoyed coming to your house. I would think that as an only child you had an especially close relationship with your parents.

All kids lie until they learn that in the end all lies come back to roost when you forget what you have said. Very often being caught in a lie is more serious then what you were lying about. I think we have all been there and found that a lie escalates little boy mischief to a trousers down beating. In my case one or two sessions with the hairbrush cured me of lying. As you grow older you think you require fewer physical punishments, your Dad or your mum agree. But there is no magic age.

I was 11 nearly 12 the first time I was caned. I was 14 nearly 15 the last time I was beaten at school. It was not an especially a big deal and everyone saw a stripes across your bottom in our communal all age changing, dressing room. It does not matter where you go. Boys in Year 6 year 9 are at the naughty stage find out what they can and cannot. It does not happen now of course. But it was always boys of that age who got the most canings. I was one of them, just a normal boy who did not know when to keep quiet, and that disobeying teachers had painful consequences on your bottom. I do not know if there was a school policy but certainly I answer far as I know nobody I know was ever told to lower their trousers for a school beating. The headmaster did not need to do that to make the cane hurt. Anything that leaves bruises for a week has got to hurt. Do you remember having bruises on your bottom when you were paddle or whipped? Hi I would think by far the worst part was taking another whipping from your Dad at home. And waiting for it. Knowing what is going to happen. That is scary.

I do not think anyone was cheering the first time I was caned apart from the prefect reported me. Maybe my friends tilt I had got away with too much and it was cheering to have it happen but it was about time I got caned. I am sure I had done enough but I had not been caught. As a boy did you ever feel that's the Paddle or the belt was anything other than a fair and reasonable punishment taking into account your age the record and what you had done? You probably did not even think about it. That is just the way it was. You do not need to compare the pain of the belt and the cane. They are both designed to punish a naughty boys bottom and both did a darn good job on boys like you and me.

A dad is the best role model as a kid and as an adult. You lost yours early but hopefully had tapped his brain often enough and listened to his opinion on how you could be the man, husband, dad you wanted to be. You must have missed him and his wise counsel. You met many young offenders who had never had that role model Dad. Some may have seen you as that wise dad figure they never had, sharing fatherly wisdom and some good advice. I am sure that kids need firm discipline at home, and you need a firm adult to make sure you get it, even if that means harking back to kind of punishment we experienced growing up.

RH

Hello again, Rick.

Things have been so busy. When you make changes in your life to reduce the burden somehow you end up increasing it. But by the time the dust settles things will be better. I am not thinking of retiring just yet, and I will still be working full-time. But I am standing down as a partner.

It was something of a disaster when I failed all my exams- they were called O levels then, and I failed nearly all of them. My school could offer nothing better than to repeat the year so my parents took me away. For the sort of fees they were paying my school should have done better by me. But things did turn out well for me probably better than if I had stayed at Rugby. And I ended up at one of Great Britain's top Russell Group universities. Yes, Rick it is funny how events have unexpected consequences, and how a small step backwards can lead to a huge leap forwards as it did for me. I was much happier after leaving Rugby living at home and studying with students much older than me who needed more exam certificates than they had. A year on and at sixth form college in North London age was no longer a factor. Most of us were 17 or 18. Yes, things really turned out for the best for me.

We have all looked back on our growing years and wondered why we did some of things we did. I think there are two reasons. Number one because we were boys. Number two because we could. We did not stop and think about things for too long. We made plans with the added spice of some risk, setting out for some excitement rather than with the intent to be naughty. The fun was in the risk, rather than in the fact that it was naughty.

I had a good family too, with limitless unconditional love. I knew that even when things did not work out well my parents still loved me and worked even harder to sort things out for me or with me. Like you I got all the basics a boy needs, and some. You say you got the privileges of being an only child but I believe I did better from having two older brothers. I still made mistakes, sometimes made poor choices but the discipline was relaxed. But when we went too far the discipline safety net was always there and we were punished. And learnt from it. There were rules and expectations but we did not feel hemmed in by them. We knew very firmly what we could get away with and seldom crossed those boundaries. We did not want sore bottoms any more than anybody else. Spankings were rare but we all knew what was going to happen when Mum picked up her hairbrush and told us to take down our trousers.

It was expected and accepted that the head of house a prefect only 3-4 years older than us would give us younger boys the slipper as punishment. We never considered it odd. It is just the way it was. The head of house took the responsibility seriously, did not deliver a spanking on a whim, and if you were beaten by him you had probably already had more than one last warning. We had had three. It was the accepted norm back then with no options and no choices. it would have been a lot more serious being sent the house master. He did what not want to have to deal with everyday minor infractions of discipline. I was too old by then to be wearing shorts for school. If I had worn shorts for school when I was 13 people would have thought I was mental! I think we were always slippered as we were. All I had on was pajamas. I don't think he would ever have expected us to lower our trousers. Be seen as inappropriate. I should stress it was only the head of house who was allowed to beat the boys in his house. Progress? Between the time Dr. Arnold arrived and the term before I did any of the house prefects, sixth formers, could beat younger boys who misbehaved, and the head of house was allowed to use a cane. I am glad that changed before I arrived. I knew all about the cane from prep school!

I tried smoking because my friends did but I not enjoy the experience. I think you were lucky that your dad thought one or two swats was a sufficient punishment. However, waiting for what you know will be bad is like a punishment in itself. You get all churned up and twisted inside although you know it is hopeless you still hope. Hope Dad will not spank you, but he does. Hope he will not make you take your trousers down, but he does. Hope he will not tell you to drop your underwear, but he does. Hoping he will not hit you too hard. Yes, a couple of paddle swats across your briefs probably did do you some good. Yes since you can still remember it now. Honestly Rick would you do any different with your son?

Everyone enters high school at 14. It is an awkward age for boys because the first time you change for PE class you see boys in all different stages of development. Some boys are bushy, some are bald, and the rest are somewhere in the between. You see all shapes and sizes of, you know. 14 is just are when you get shy so I am not surprised you found it embarrassing at first. Because I had been made to strip off and shower naked at school since I was 11, it was not an issue for me by age 14. Stripping off, playing basketball on the skins team and showering with your classmates afterwards soon became a part of normal school routine.

Warnings, second chances and last chances, and somehow not get a walloping when you knew you had done enough to earn one is probably the experience of many boys. However there is only so much good luck and one day it runs out and that is when you get punished. In our house it was mainly mum who spanked us but I behaved better at home than I did at school so Mum spankings were there. She did sometimes say wait until your father gets home but he tended to bring us to tears without needing to resort to bottom therapy.

I agree that teen boys need a strong male role model and firm consistent and fair dad discipline at home. Without that many boys will struggle, be confused and never learn to make those good choices which could change their lives. I was given the cane at school and that bruised up a lot. The headmaster at my prep school thought that was an appropriate punishment for us 10 to 13 year olds, and we agreed. Maybe you do not need to beat a kid until he is bruised to get a lesson across. I guess it depends on what you are used to. I agreed that a good spanking should be confined to his bottom. No boy, not even a good boy like you or me is so well behaved that an occasional corrective spanking is never needed.

Good to talk.

The best

Richard

Rick and RH

Hi Rick. Thank you for responding to my other message.

I think that open communication between kids and parents can solve all kinds of problems. It is when you cannot talk and perhaps even more when you cannot or will not listen that problems arise. And adults are as much to blame as kids. Sorry maybe the hardest word to say but it is also one of the most effective and can defuse the most dangerous of situations at home or school. When trying to explain yourself for some misdeed it is usually better to tell the truth rather than try to lie your way out of trouble. Boys always try it, and it never works. While you get warnings and second chances you can only have so many before you find you have gone too far. If you do not heed those warnings you cannot complain when you are punished. While your dad does hates to have to spank you sometimes you leave him little option. But hopefully as you grow older there is more talk and less punishment.

I was never spanked much as home. It was usually done in underwear. I can almost hear my mum ordering me to take down my trousers while brandishing the hairbrush in her hand. I have told you before about the beatings I got at school. Most of those were with a rattan cane. I do not know how it compares but for an 11 to 14 year old boy it was a painful and effective punishment. I can remember the experience even now. It was not something we dreaded, but it was something we tried to avoid. But if you were hauled before the headmaster there was little you could say. Oh, and we were beaten on the seat of our shorts. We did not carry anything in our back pockets and no one thought of untucking our shirt tails. With those brief brief white briefs we all wore only your thin shorts were covering most of your bottom. That seemed to be enough. We had a class debate. It was not going to change anything but we overwhelmingly supported the concept of corporal punishment at that school notwithstanding the likelihood that it would be us who got it.

I never had the illusion that a school spanking would not hurt. Like you I was a little bit curious as to how it would feel but I never thought it would be actually being me behind the closed door of the headmaster study as he retrieved the cane from his desk. I was too numb to be scared.

I did not get me much kudos even though the other boys now knew I could be as naughty as them. They just thought I was careless to have got myself caned for that (I was unconsciously doing something the headmaster had specifically told us not to do. I made the mistake of do it in front of a prefect)

I can only imagine how much it must have hurt you as a boy at 13 having leather used on your bare bottom only hours after you got a good paddling on those same butt cheeks. I am glad I was never subject to that kind of beating, but what we did get made a darn good impression on your bottom. The bruising usually faded after a week.

A good dad is the best role model of what a man husband and dad should be. He offers you wise counsel but tries not to run (ruin) your life. Even as a young parent I valued Dads advice, even if I did not always follow it. I hope I have been the right kind of role model for my own children and even grandchildren.

I am happy to hear you are enjoying retirement so much. Come the autumn I will retire from the Partnership but stay on as a part time consultant for the time being. I am looking forward to that great come and get it day.

That is all for now

Richard